Movies Like The White Ribbon

If you liked The White Ribbon (2009), a drama and mystery movie directed by Michael Haneke, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
The Tin Drum (1979)
★ 7/10Also drama
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
2
Cracks (2009)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and mystery
Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.
3
To End All Wars (2001)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military…
4
Novitiate (2017)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.
5
Escape from Sobibor (1987)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
6
Sound of Falling (2025)
★ 7/10Also drama
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters…
7
Pretty Baby (1978)
★ 7/10Also drama
In 1917 New Orleans, a 12-year-old girl is raised in a brothel by her prostitute mother.
8
Boy A (2008)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed…
9
Lady Macbeth (2016)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Rural England, 1865. Katherine, suffocated by her loveless marriage to a bitter man and restrained by his father's tyranny, unleashes an irresistible force within her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get…
10
Cape Fear (1991)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape…
11
Changeling (2008)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and mystery
Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her…
12
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
13
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Huw Morgan, the academically inclined youngest son in a proud family of Welsh coal miners, witnesses the tumultuous events of his young life during a period of rapid social change. At the dawn of the 20th-century, a…
14
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.
15
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect…
16
Sparta (2022)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Ewald moved to Romania years ago. Now in his 40s, he seeks a fresh start. Leaving his girlfriend, he moves to the hinterland. With young boys from the area, he transforms a decaying school into a fortress. The children…
17
The King Tide (2024)
★ 6.8/10Also mystery
After the mayor of an idyllic island village discovers a child with mysterious powers awash on their shores, the once peaceful community devolves into civil war, torn over the belief that the child is the next saviour.
18
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
★ 8.1/10Also drama
After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby, the…
19
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as…
20
The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in…